Dickensalong 2023- 2024 : Nicholas Nickleby

[Piggywaspushed]

Come along and join me in the next Dickens readalong.

We have chosen Nicholas Nickleby which was originally published by Dickens in 19 instalments.

I propose condensing this to a nine month read, using Dickens shorter sections as a guide. We begin in October, as follows:

October - Chapters 1 - 7
November - Chapters 8-14
December - Chapters 15-23
January - Chapters 24-29
February - Chapters 30-36
March - Chapters 37-42
April - Chapters 43-51
May - Chapters 52-58
and finishing in
June 2024 - Chapters 59 - end

Summoning old faithfuls and newcomers, one and all!

I guess Dickens knew enough teenage girls from his own family to have observed their behaviour! He had a slightly older sister (also called Fanny, or that was how she was affectionately known, anyway). And he was only in his mid-20s himself when he wrote NN.

I always feel like everyone was called Fanny until about 1880!

Oh maybe I read it wrong - it felt uncomfortably like he was looking down on people who couldn’t help being uneducated (albeit Fanny is awful for other reasons, obviously) but maybe that wasn’t how it was meant. And I suppose he had very humble roots too, for all that he would have been rich and famous by the time he was writing this.

Oh wait, he was only in his mid-20s when he wrote it?! That makes it very different from the 50-something-year-old I was imagining!

This installment continued to be a good and lively read, but a difficult one. The hardships the children suffered and Smike's bullying by the Squeers were heart-rending. I agree that Dickens is very astute. I think the episode with Fanny and her friend was meant to provide some light relief from the general misery. You could really sense Dickens's contempt here. He came down hard on Fanny and her odious family.

I wonder if we have seen the last of the Squeers now? Will Nicholas be like Little Nell and go off on various adventures now? I also thought he would have stayed on longer at Dotheby Hall as it's very early on yet in the book. I was so glad when Smike made his escape. It was the only high point in the section. That and when Squeers got a dose of his own medicine. What a crook! You could almost hear the imaginary audience giving a cheer!

Hi All

Just a reminder that December is quite a long section : chapters 15 -23.
My Wordsworth edition perplexingly has a printing error where chapter 24 is labelled XIV!

Thanks Piggy! I'll get onto it over Christmas. Funny one :)

There must be a way of stopping this thread from vanishing!

Anyway, just bumping for those participants who have not been too busy/ inebriated/ hungover/ill to finish their chapters.

I finished today after the light pony cruelty ...

Hope to catch up with everyone in two days/2024.

I'm here! I've spent most of my Christmas reading time on NN.
This was a long but lively section with some very enjoyable moments.

Morning! Here's to 2024! How, how, can we be nearly a quarter of the way through the 21st century when I still think it's the 20th??

December's instalment has been both ripsnortingly satirical and grimly disturbing, replete with Dickensian archetypes : and the ever beloved pony! Victorian circuses were not big on health and safety or animal protection, that’s for sure.

I loved the cameo from the Johnson before his time Mr Gregsbury , ‘a tough burly, thick headed gentleman, with a loud voice, a pompous manner, a tolerable command of sentences with no meaning in them, and, in short, every requisite for a very good member indeed.’ His spattering of references to patriotic fervour and his evasion of every question put to him sounds awfully familiar.

I found the Kate chapters interesting. Was her despicable uncle literally pimping her out!? How revolting. And her stupid, daft mother. Poor Kate.

I had just about recovered enough from the suffering of Kate to be diverted by the relish with which Dickens describes the Mantalinis, Mr especially with his histrionics. This bit concerning Mr M's safety first approach to self harming particularly tickled me- not many writers make me guffaw at 6 am (or any time) :
‘At this crisis of his ravings Mr Mantalini… being restrained by his wife’s grasp, attempted to dash his head against the wall- taking very good care to be at least six feet from it.’

I am not entirely sure where all of this is going- it feels like it will just be picaresque episodic wanderings like other Dickenses but I like the humorous touches a great deal and definitely prefer it to The Old Curiosity Shop thus far.

Happy New Year everyone! I know what you mean about the time passing Piggy - I was watching something about the 1970s a couple of days ago and my head refuses to believe that’s 50 years ago - surely it’s only about 30 years ago?

This was an interesting section - lots going on. I wasn’t really sure of the point of the chapter where Nicholas goes for the job interview with the MP - was that just Dickens filling up his word count or will that MP reappear later?

I did like the chapters following Kate although I agree that the chapter where the uncle took her to that dinner party was disturbing. Hopefully we will revisit her later to see what she is up to.

I also enjoyed the chapters about the Mantolinis and I had noted the same passage that you did Piggy - that also made me laugh. What an exhausting couple they must be!

I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next with the theatre company. I agree Piggy that it could just be lots of filler chapters with them travelling around and putting on various productions, but it’s likely to still be very entertaining to read!

I liked this section a lot - very entertaining reading between Christmas and New Year! It’s very episodic but not in the same way as Old Curiosity Shop - less endless, cloyingly virtuous trudging about.

I think Kate’s uncle was planning to set up a flirtation between her and the young drunken lord he’s fleecing - not have her almost assaulted by Sir Mulberry Hawk. I like the way the uncle is softened a bit by Kate’s virtue; he’s evil but not completely lost.

I also liked the bit about the elderly gentleman in Madame Mantalini’s shop - his bride was going to give him a new lease of life, which was just as well because it looked like his old one was about to wear out

Didn’t like the casual child cruelty in the theatre troupe - keeping the Infant Phenomenon small by making her stay up late and pouring unlimited gin down her. Grim.

I enjoyed this section - I agree with all your comments above! It went in an unexpected direction for me, as the only thing I knew about Nicholas Nickleby before reading it was Dotheboys Hall so I had assumed that most of the action would take place there and/or relate to Squeers!

I have to confess I have read ahead and will probably finish the book in the next few days - I’m not great at eking books out! I’ll try to keep on with the monthly comments on this thread anyway…

Happy New Year everyone!

Yes! I agree with everything mentioned.
This section was a good, lively read and while it was long, it held my interest throughout.

There is a similarity with TOCS but that book is like a pale imitation of this one.
I totally agree with LadyBird that it gets bogged down in pious virtue. * *This is much more interesting, lively and humorous.

Saying that, it is very grim in parts. I don't think I've read anything else by Dickens yet quite as shocking as the dinner party scene and the harassment that Kate experienced at the hands of that peer. I was wondering if her uncle would even step in and protect her. The 'infant phenomenon' is also creepy to say the least.

The Mantalinis were entertaining. They would completely wreck your head in real life. The 'head-banging' scene also made me chuckle. I think that the most annoying character award in the book goes to Nicholas's and Kate's mother. She is beyond annoying. Poor long-suffering Kate!

This was a very enjoyable section and I completely agree that the effect is totally different to TOCS, although Dickens was doing much the same thing, ie filling up his pages with a succession of experiences for the main characters. The crucial factor I suppose is that here he’s a young author at the top of his game and fizzing with invention and wit. You do feel he’s just trying things out, but there are so many great characters that if you don’t much like one, there’ll be another along in a minute.

The infuriating Mrs Nickleby is always said to have been based on Dickens's own mother, with whom he had a pretty strained relationship - if that’s true, he certainly gets his revenge here, as she’s so awful. Like Mrs Bennett but a million times worse.

What’s interesting at the moment is that Kate is quite an unusual Dickens heroine: not cloyingly 'good' and pious à la Little Nell, but just making the best of their situation and getting on with it in a practical way. I like the way she squashes down Mrs Nickleby's ramblings with a fierce look and grits her teeth in the terrible jobs she has to do (and yes, there was a very dark undertone to Ralph virtually pimping her out at his dinner-party).

Like everyone, I enjoyed the comedy of the Mantalinis, and also Miss Knag with her constant 'hems!'. As in Hard Times, it seemed to me that things took on an extra energy once Nicholas encountered the Crummles and their troupe. Even then, Dickens was mad about the theatre (he’d considered becoming an actor at one point) and I think you can tell that from the way he writes about them. I’m afraid I have to laugh at the 10-year-old Infant Phenomenon with her prematurely aged countenance (sorry), and Mrs Crummles walking tragically even when they’re just going back to their lodgings for mutton and onion sauce…

It went in an unexpected direction for me, as the only thing I knew about Nicholas Nickleby before reading it was Dotheboys Hall so I had assumed that most of the action would take place there and/or relate to Squeers!

That was exactly my experience before going into it too so I was also surprised that the school was such a small part of it!

I've finally caught up and I'm loving the book and everyone's comments on it!

I agree that the scene with Kate at her uncle's dinner is fascinating. She's a bit of a feminist icon in that scene really.

Piggy, you're right in saying Mr Gregsbury is a Boris before his time!

I didn't know that Mrs Nickleby was based on Dickens' own mother. Intriguing!

It doesn't seem entirely plausible to me that Nicholas should exile himself from his mother and sister because of the threat that Uncle Ralph will cut ties with them if he doesn't (I mean, surely he's realised by this point that Ralph is not to be trusted?). But I suppose it's partly a plot device, so that we can follow their stories separately for awhile.

I also really enjoyed the Crummles and their theatre troupe. Am looking forward to reading on. It strikes me that the whole novel is quite theatrical really. Dickens does the voices of the different characters so well. Many of them have their own distinct way of speaking (good John Browdie with his Yorkshire dialect, Mr Mantalini with his 'demmed' and 'it', and so on). It's a real panorama of characters from different walks of life, and even though some of them are comically exaggerated, they're impressively distinctive and memorable.

I also wanted to say that reading Nicholas Nickleby is a bit of an exercise in nostalgia for me, because I loved it when I was young. I remembered seeing a miniseries of it on the telly as a child, and being totally engrossed by it. I even cried a bit at the end as I recall, because I didn't want it to be over. If I remember correctly, it ended with everyone joining hands at the end and singing 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen'.

Anyway, I did a bit of googling, and it turns out that I saw a film based on an 8 1/2 hour stage production done by the RSC! It aired in the US on public television in 1983, when I was 12. (Most telly was banned from the house when I was a child, but Dickens was Classic, so we were allowed to watch it. 🙄)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Adventures_of_Nicholas_Nickleby_(play)

Even better, the whole 8.5 hour film is available to watch on youtube! I found the link here:
https://wreninkpaper.com/2022/07/11/group-watch-the-rscs-nicholas-nickleby/

So I'm rewatching it and greatly enjoying it. I hadn't even remembered that it was a play. The lighting strikes me as very dark (literally), with much of stage veiled in gloom, but some of the actors are brilliant I think, for example David Threlfall as Smike and Edward Petherbridge as Newman Noggs. I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to watch the whole thing straight away, or watch it gradually along with the reading programme, but I'll probably just watch the whole thing, as I read the novel a couple of times in my teens due to my passion for the film, so it's the Dickens novel I know best (not that that's saying much!).

Wow! 8 1/2 hours! All in one go in the theatre? Imagine learning those lines!

I will watch that when we finish. Maybe not all in one go...

That RSC production was rightly famous, @cassandre. I was at school and desperate to go to it, despite living 200 miles away, but my (much older) cousin lived in London and she actually got tickets to take me to see it. It was staged in parts, as I remember - you didn’t have to go to the whole 8.5 hours at a stretch!

I was wildly excited…..then our exam timetable was announced. You guessed it. Tickets returned. I never did get to see it live 😭

David Threlfall won awards for his portrayal of Smike, which was absolutely incredible. They workshopped the characters and he decided that Smike had cerebral palsy. It’s the most touching and unbelievable piece of acting, almost too painful to watch, actually. And must have been massively demanding for him to play night after night.

It's great to have you on board with us, cassandre :) I think that Dickens is a wonderful* writer and he's brilliant when he's in top form. I loved your recollections of watching the film as a twelve year old and Terpsichore's insights into the RSC play and Dickens and the theatre are fascinating. It makes a lot of sense as there is a theatricality about many of his characters, particularly the villains. In the previous books we read especially, The Old Curiosity Shop had the very evil, creepy little man who used to hang upside down and scare the living daylights out of people. In Little Dorrit the villain reminded me of a pantomime *character, very foreign and flamboyant, drawing up his moustaches and drawing down his eyebrows when he was thinking about his next nefarious deed. And I agree that Dickens does voices very well and very memorable characters.

I'll plan on watching the production once we finish the book.

That play sounds interesting. I think I might try and watch in parts after finishing each instalment and see how it goes!

@Terpsichore, sorry for the slow reply! I can't believe you almost saw the RSC Nicholas Nickleby and then had to miss out! What a disappointment. I'm impressed though that you were prepared to see the whole show live; that's hardcore for anyone, let alone a teenager.

I didn't know David Threlfall won awards for his performance of Smike, but he certainly deserves them. I had googled him to see what he looked like and was surprised to see that he didn't seem to have a visible disability in real life. I had just assumed that it was a disabled actor playing the part. Wow.

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh , you're right about the pantomime-like villains in Dickens!

Just to clarify for everyone keeping pace, it's chapters 24 to 29 this month.

Thanks Piggy! Looking forward to it.